


Birth of the Lamb

by Rubia_Elliora



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:49:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubia_Elliora/pseuds/Rubia_Elliora
Summary: Each footstep is a mile. The earth clings to my feet like it wants me to take root. But I can’t stop, I won’t pause. I have no choice, I need to keep him alive. If the heavens were open before, they now openly condemn us. I can’t take a breath without the risk of drowning. If I possess a shred of faith in divinity, it means the creator wants to grind me under its boot, right here in hell.God never was fair.





	Birth of the Lamb

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short using the first and last lines of Fahrenheit 451.
> 
> For anyone familiar with my older work (on other accounts) you will recognize the story, despite it being adjusted quite a bit. 
> 
> Love, Becs

It was a pleasure to burn, that isn’t usually the case.

Whenever I’m desperate to yell and scream at injustices dealt out by these goddamn bullies—peers or adults—my throat swells and incinerates words I will _not_ let pass. But they don’t die. They claw at my insides with the pain and fury of containment. Those words became a caged beast that I haven’t released for a year, back when snow extinguished my family and I was thrown into hell.

Now that blaze within is pleasurable. I look down on the face that my hands are rearranging—communicating better than my mouth ever could.

Blood is black in the moonlight.

I’d have assumed that I would feel something: guilt, or remorse—whatever the _good book_ says I should. After fantasizing about this escape every night for a sleep barren month, there’s nothing but fascination as this hurdle is destroyed. Bone and flesh are fickle. I knew that already from the snow.

He was in our way and the beast turned wild.

Another dull, wet thud lands, the rock I found connecting with his skull once more. When can I stop?

“Wilhelmina,” comes a quiet voice at my shoulder. It isn’t timid but wary.

I stop then. Breath shuddering in my lungs. Rain hits me furiously; a deranged baptism. But will Matteo fear what’s reborn? My knees squelch in the mud. The body is unmoving beneath me.

The bully met his end.

I have to look up. What I find isn’t wariness. Matteo is waiting in his threadbare, damp clothes, shivering, gaze directed at the sprawling building he was dragged and I ran from. The lights are still out but it won’t stay that way for long. He focuses on me, his doe eyes wild, but he’s not terrified of what I’m capable of.

Should he be?

“We have to go, they’ll come.”

I nod. He understands that I don’t speak, and has never tried to provoke me out of that choice unlike every other damned soul in this place. This fatal nightmare was engineered to make me speak— _no_ , not speak; they only ever wanted to hear me scream. I never gave them that. I gave them unrepentant knuckles, famished teeth and a bastard rock.

Standing, I hold a tainted hand up to Matteo. He stays still as I beeline for the thickets that surround our hiding tree. We were stockpiling for our escape, as much as we could in a basic life support facility. We’d wanted to leave next week, after the storms had passed, but the bully forced _this_.

Matteo had been lured into the night with lies, masking desires more grotesque than what I’ve paid back in retribution. Now we have to run. The bully should’ve known there’s nothing I won’t do to protect Matteo—my last gift. I knew it the first time I saw this bag of bones, harbouring a half drowned pup in the hopes he could have something _good_.

None of us can have goodness in hell.

That’s why the pup died. That’s why I decided I’d get us out, to the city, before we died, too. Not like the bully, but dead in the soul—the worst way. Like the zombies that oversee the orphanage; they have no heart between them. They breathe, eat and shit cruelty.

The canvas bag is in my hand, blood already drying, sticky on the fabric. As I re-emerge, my feet stop, knees almost buckling. Blood sears through my veins. I’m sure it’s oozing from the sore points where fists and feet found me.

I’m confronted with an afterimage. Then I blink and it’s Matteo—not me—straddling the body. But the dead boy’s shirt is lifted, pressed over his mouth with trembling hands.

Silence herds me forward before my knees give way by his side, landing in sod that sloughs as easily as flesh. His fingers are ivory and steel as they hold the material down. The bully’s gaze is cast heavenward, and glazed with vacancy of soul. His eyes were closed when I was done.

“H-he was breathing, he w-was a bully— _he hurt you_.” Matteo’s voice evolves ferociously, air filling with venom as he speaks. His teeth grind behind a vengeful grimace. We all want vengeance; we’ll give it to anything half worthy. “He hurt you.”

A river of tears strain against a dam. The precious protection I give to him extends back to me. Salt mixes with the rain that slides down my cheeks.

No, he shouldn’t be scared. I love him, with every bleak scrap of soul left.

My hand touches his shoulder; ink on pure lambswool.

“Matteo.” My voice is hoarse and unpractised. But the word is a hymn finally held on my tongue. “We have to go.”

The whites of his eyes are lunar bright. Mouth open and empty like the gates into an underworld. All he can do—the shock of my voice outweighing the corpse we pulled down—is nod.

* * *

 

Each footstep is a mile. The earth clings to my feet like it wants me to take root. But I can’t stop, I won’t pause. I have no choice, I need to keep him alive. If the heavens were open before, they now openly condemn us. I can’t take a breath without the risk of drowning. If I possess a shred of faith in divinity, it means the creator wants to grind me under its boot, right here in hell.

God never was fair.

My jaw firms, I’ll prove them wrong. The plan was to get over the border; once past it, we’d make a straight line to the city. Then everything would be fine.

When we reach the city.

Matteo is losing steam, my shoulder hurts with the effort it takes to drag him along. So I scoop him up, like a ragdoll, and sling him over my shoulder. He doesn’t protest, nor make a sound. The quiet intensity of survival has overwhelmed us.

I’m counting the hills we crest, hoping we will get to the next without hearing the baying of human and dog at our heels. They will come. It’s the only certainty.

There isn’t much farther to go, there _can’t_ be.

As I worry distance, Matteo’s slight body tenses and emits a shuddering sob. I bring him down to cradle him against my chest, despite the pull and scream of my muscles. The last time I held someone like this, it was little Senna. She felt ten times Matteo’s weight despite being half his age.

A corpse weighs a lot. I don’t think I let her go.

“Don’t think about it, we’re almost there. I have you.” My voice is firm, I'm shocked at its feigned calm.

Matteo lets out another sob, I pull him closer as a shout explodes behind us. “It’s—” he pauses to breathe. We reach the top of the hill and I don’t dare look back. “Y-you spoke. You spoke t-to me.” His fists clutch to my shirt.

God, I wish we had time to cry. But we will.

“I was always going to. There were so many times—” I bite down on my lip. Why didn’t I? Why couldn’t I speak before? A year of silence; a year dormant of reactions; a year of bullying simply to find my weak spot—everything fuelled this explosion. Was it worth it? Is this all _my_ fault? “I have so much to say, and we will talk about… _everything_ , when we get there.”

“When we reach the city,” Matteo mutters. The usual force of his energy slack, stuck in the mud like my feet.

There’s a bark and I keep my body from flinching at the sound. He can’t see me weak. But they’re coming.

“Mina, I’m tired.”

My teeth cut hard enough to draw blood from my lip. I can’t, not now. “Me, too, but we’ll rest—soon.”

“At the city.”

“That’s right.”

My legs dig into the hillside as I climb. The voices are behind us; they can’t be far. Let this be the last rise…

Relief floods me, hot fresh tea in a cold, brittle cup—warming my muscles and renewing hope. From the hilltop I can see a dark line, stretching from riverbank into the distance: the border.

“Do you think you can run down this last hill?”

He nods, numb to everything, even the voices at our backs. I place him on his feet and—before I have a firm grasp of his hand—our legs are taking long strides, towards redemption.

His hold on me tightens, urging my attention. I can do nothing for the burst of anxiety that flares. All I find is an out of place, lopsided smile.

“I like your voice,” he says.

In the midst of this unbearable onslaught those innocent words force a huff of delight from my throat. “I like _you_ , Matteo.” It’s an understatement, but I can show him what he means to me later.

When we reach the city.

We collide with the crumbling border like hailstones, but there’s no chance to catch our breath. I’m not sure if it’s my heartbeat in the soles of my feet, or if it’s the vibrations of the mob eating up ground in our wake.

“There’s wire at the top; we’ll get scratches.” Matteo nods in acceptance like I just told him it was Monday. There’s a hole, a brick was kicked out or it was never there in the first place. Either way, my gain. I push my foot into the gap, hauling myself up. My fingers barely manage to grasp the top; loose rubble disintegrates under my weight but I cling on. There’s no time for a redo. My muscles can complain for eternity; they just need to hold out tonight.

The lip of hell scrapes along my body, but it can take whatever flesh it wants. My soul _is_ getting out. One leg dangling over either side, and metal thorns digging into me, I reach down for Matteo. The discomfort keeps my focus from the crest of the hill where a silhouette appears. A loud cry of victory fills the night.

Matteo jumps, his wet palm slaps against mine. I grab it like it’s the only thing in the entire universe that matters—because it is. My thighs strain, gripping the wall, as I jerk him up. We move in slow motion; the world congealing. His feet flail, trying and failing to find purchase.

“We will fly,” I whisper loud enough that he can hear. “Like butterflies, over the wall.” I feel the scales tip, he’s up far enough that I _know_ we’ll both make it over. I just have to pull a little harder…

There’s a flash of light. The world explodes in a whip crack. Something rocks the wall. Then there’s nothing. I’m hurling through a void before the hard earth slams against me, punching a grunt from my lungs.

I wheeze, staring at the stars while water continues to pour into me. I can’t feel my body, and I think I might be a star, too—weightless, far away. But before I can consider whether this is purgatory, I find my priorities haven’t altered.

Matteo.

I scramble to my knees, rib cage straining as I suck air into my body, my eyes darting around the blackness that surrounds me.

“ _Matteo_?”

There’s a heartbeat, then an answer. “Mina.” The voice is muted, in a separate universe. Then I see the thing that splits me in two. A small hand stretching through the hole I used to climb.

He’s on the wrong side.

“No, _no—_ ” I cry, scooting to him. My fingers find his. “I can climb up again, I can—” My nostrils flare as I inhale. I can taste the blood before he speaks.

Blood and snow.

Blood and rain.

How many flavours of failure are there?

“They hit me, m-my leg.” I hear him inhale tears; he steels himself. “I can’t get up.”

It was gunshot. I should have known. “I can climb over, a-and push you first—”

“They’re coming, Mina.” The feet are drawing closer, like an earthquake. Ivory and steel grip my hand, his fingers curling around mine in desperation but they contradict his words. “They’ll think it was you—the boys—they’ll kill you. You have to go.”

I’m shaking my head as he speaks. I can’t. Not again. “Never, not without—”

“You can get me, when you’re safe. You can find me somehow.”  

I press my forehead to his little hand. It’s warm, the only warmth left in this world. He’s not even sure of the things he’s saying, but he feeds them to me anyway. He’s feeding me lies to keep me alive.

A gift from God.

What have I done?

I don’t hold back the grief that pours from me in a helpless moan. “I can’t—”

“ _We_ can’t be free if you’re dead.” His eyes are moons once more, peeking through this dire gap between worlds. Moons begging me to desert their orbit. His words wield a contemptuous edge. I’m not adhering to sense.

They are almost on him. Spotlights scour the ground in both worlds.

Something shatters when I nod. “I’ll come for you—soon as I can.”

“I know.” The statement is an _amen_ ; a wish rather than verified knowledge. “Go!”

I look at him, eyes wilder as they dart back at his oncoming fate, one I’m shielded from. There’s so much I should have said to him, so much I _have_ to say to him.

A tear breaks from his lashes. “Please, Mina— _GO!_ ”

Goodbye wasn’t one of the things I ever intended to say; I leave him in silence. Breaking from that spot—as the shouts and barks overwhelm my senses, screams flay at my heels, moving me faster through the bleak—I run. Like the coward I am.

I run until water reaches my knees and roots snag at my feet. I run until the stars are veiled with branches, before my legs refuse to assist in this treacherous act. My face meets sod and leaves, twigs press into my palms, but all I can do is breathe and wail into the endless dark.

God decided to grant a single prayer; I have time to cry.

_Alone_.

It gives and it takes away.

There’s no way I can outrun this mournful sadness, so I let the stampede crush me.

The rain stops as my tears run dry. I feel that burn again, but this time it’s Wilhelmina being incinerated within the bone cage of my anatomy. The beast has control now.

I’m a mockery of that name anyway.

Everything centres coldly—clinically. I will do whatever it takes, I will find him. Then I can combine the beast and the human. We will merge, but not until then.

My lips move numbly, though no one's here. “When _we_ reach the city.”


End file.
